So last month I wrote about my plan to create a illustrated recipe every week...in the hope of having a book published by They Draw and Cook...well its working out so far. Recipe No 3 was Raspberry & Passionfruit cupcakes which was featured on their Valentines recipe collection. I was able to use the hands making the heart shape from a short animation from last year. And the cupcakes were from a doodle a day exercise from last year also. I'm finally understanding the value of leveraging!

Next up was a crunchy Pear & Walnut Salad. Again the pears were from a Doodle a Day from last Autumn. I did have to come up with rather a lot of various salad leaves and the walnuts.

The next week was Grilled Mackerel with lemon & Chilli. I loved illustrating these mackerel- they are wonderful to cook when super fresh. I was able to use the chilli peppers from a greetings card project. Below are the sketches that I worked from. I have a loose framework of ingredients that I want to work with an have started planning two or three weeks ahead.

And this weeks was Herb Infused Oils. I had back to back deadlines and knew had had to come up with something simple but effective. I researched the different flavours then in one evening I drew a sheet of herbs and a sheet of various oil bottle shapes.

I have enjoyed researching, planning and trying out new layouts for each recipe. I have learnt to work quicker and hopefully not lose any freshness. Whilst I'm very pleased with these and have played and explored , this month I'm going to try adding some new elements and expand things a little further stylistically.